Abstract
Complicity as “toleration of wrong” is deeply rooted in Western language and narratives. It is based on assumptions about the self, our relationship to the world and personal accountability that differ from the Common Law's and moral theology's standard doctrines. How we blame others for “tolerating wrong” depends upon the moral force of public discourse and upon the meaning of censure as exhortation. Censure as blame is usually retrospective, while censure as exhortation is forward-looking and stresses moral maturity and flourishing.
Similar content being viewed by others
REFERENCES
Angell, Marcia. (1990). The Nazi hypothermia experiments and unethical research today. The New England Journal of Medicine, 322 1462–64.
Aristotle. (1984). Nicomachean Ethics. In Jonathan Barnes (Ed.), The complete works of Aristotle (pp. 1729–1867). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Caplan, Arthur L. (1992). When medicine went mad. Totowa, NJ: Humana Press.
Glidden, David K. (1991). The elusiveness of moral recognition and the imaginary place of fiction. In Peter A. French, Theodore E. Uehling, Jr. & Howard K. Wettstein (Eds.), Midwest studies in philosophy (XVI). Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.
Gottlieb, Martin, & Eichenwald, Kurt. (1997, May 11). A hospital chain's brass knuckles, and the backlash. The New York Times p. 1.
Gottlieb, Martin, & Eichenwald, Kurt. (1997, April 6). For biggest hospital operator, a debate over ties that bind. The New York Times, p. 1.
Hart, H.L.A., & Honoré, Tony. (1985). Causation in the law (2nd ed.). Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Hochhuth, Rolf. (1964). The deputy. New York: Grove Press.
Jonsen, Albert R., & Toulmin, Stephen J. (1988). The abuse of casuistry. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Kadish, Sanford. (1985). Complicity, cause and blame: A study in the interpretation of doctrine. California Law Review, 323 323–410.
Kissell, Judith. (1997.) A comprehensive view of complicity as positive collaboration and toleration-of-evil. Doctoral Dissertation, Georgetown University.
Levitt, Saul. (1960). The Andersonville trial. New York: Dramatists Play Service, Inc.
Noonan, John T. (1976). Persons and masks of the law. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Nussbaum, Martha. (1986). The fragility of goodness. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Nussbaum, Martha. (1990). Love's knowledge. New York: Oxford Press.
Pope John Paul II. (1997). The roots of anti-Judaism. Origins, 22, 365–67.
Ricoeur, Paul. (1989). Time and narrative (Vol. 3). Kathleen Blamey & David Pellauer (Trans.). Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Smiley, Marion. (1992). Moral responsibility and the boundaries of community. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Trilling, Lionel. (1979). The liberal imagination. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
Wertz, Dorothy C., & Fletcher, John C. (1993). Prenatal diagnosis and sex selection in 19 nations. Social Science and Medicine, 11, 1359–1366.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Kissell, J.L. Complicity in Thought and Language: Toleration of Wrong. Journal of Medical Humanities 20, 49–60 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1022938600602
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1022938600602